This Is Your House

This is your house. You will wake up here. Your job is to make it okay. [[Wake up->Open the Door]] (set:$sockdrawer to 0) (set:$pantsdrawer to 0) (set:$shirtdirt to 0) (set:$kickstick to 0) (set:$inv to (array: "a flashlight", " crumpled bills in a currency that you don't recognize", " one folded napkin"))

The moon is out, which is notable only in the way it shines through the blind- covered window into this room. Light flits through slats, falling onto the bed, the desk, the floor in neat white lines. This might be your bedroom, but you have never been in it before. There's a door out, and a door into the closet. Which way do you go? [[Upstairs]] [[Closet]]

Everything looks white. You could step into this or you can go back. You can't see anything, but you can feel your breath interact softly with the freezing cold air, goosebumps standing up on the back of your arm like soft pinpricks. You're suddenly worried if you go in you might not be able to get back. You could step in, or you could turn away. [[Go forward.]] [[Go back->Open the Door]]

The house is clean, and dark. It's after midnight-- at least this is what you guess, with the cool breeze of an air conditioner filtering around the quiet summer night, not even the sound of a car outside despite how suburban the area outside seems. You're on a landing, carpeted in blue. The walls are blank, apart from one painting, which dominates the tiny, crooked flight of stairs down. There are two other doors. [[Take the door to the right.]] [[Take the door to the left.]] [[Examine the painting.]] [[Go downstairs.]] [[Go back->Open the Door]]

You open the door to the right with a sharp click, eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. It's a mid-sized bedroom, small to some, large to more. The large futon that serves as a bed, messy and unmade, is about a foot away from three of the walls. The fourth wall is lined with a window, a dresser, and a crib. There is something in the crib. [[Examine the dresser.]] [[Examine the bed.]] [[Examine the crib.]] [[Examine the window.]] [[Upstairs]]

It's a child's bedroom. [[You already hate this.]]

There's something wrong with this painting-- it's beautiful, and definitely <i>of</i> something, but you're not sure quite what it is. [[Look closer.]]

You get down stairs into a long, cold hallway that connects into an open concept living room. You can see into the kitchen from here, too. There's a door beside the stairs, which seems to go into an office of some sort. There's another door further down the hallway that seems to go to a bathroom. [[Explore the living room.]] [[Explore the kitchen.]] [[Explore the office.]] [[Explore the bathroom.]] [[Upstairs]]

The soft crunch of snow beneath your feet is bitter and cold, biting up like a thousand tiny shards of glass. You feel behind you for the wooden doorway of the closet, knowing that there will be nothing there. Sure enough, your hands grasp empty air. But what else could you expect. <i>You feel as if nothing is ever going to happen again.</i> Your breath is heavier now, more potent, more like a thick, airy liquid pouring from your lips, soft and warm against the pure white cold. There is no way back. You stumble forward, blinking, eyes screaming against the paleness of your surroundings until you start being able to make shapes out. [[Walk forwards.]] [[Examine your surroundings.]] [[Call out.]] [[Freak out.]]

You can't help but feel watched as water trickles down and melts behind you, like you've just missed out on the Spring. Still, you march forwards, in your comfy pajamas, cushy and cold. You see a stream, a cradle, and a bell. What do you do? [[Go to the stream.]] [[Go to the cradle.]] [[Go to the bell.]]

You're in a clearing. Frost is thick on the ground here, and you can't help but think about lamp posts. The sky beyond the dead and bare trees is an unnatural shade of blue.

You call out, breath frosting and crystallizing in the cold air. You feel a hand on your shoulder. [[Take a look]] [[Do not take a look]]

You begin to panic, and call out in a fit of nonsense and screaming. You fumble through your bag, looking for something to calm your nerves. (if: $inv contains "whiskey")[You find the bottle of whiskey you found in the bedroom earlier, [[and gulp it down]]] (if: $inv contains "whiskey")[Or...] You continue to panic, and [[beg for someone, anyone, to help you.]]

The dresser is nice. You probably shouldn't go through it. It probably belongs to whoever's bedroom this is. You go through it anyway. (if:$sockdrawer < 1)[You decide to [[Rifle through sock drawer.]]] (else:$sockdrawer > 1)[You have searched the sock drawer.] (if:$shirtdirt < 1)[You decide to [[Rifle through shirt drawer.]]] (else:$shirtdirt > 1)[You have searched the shirt drawer.] (if:$pantsdrawer < 1)[You decide to [[Rifle through pants drawer.]]] (if:$pantsdrawer > 1)[You have searched the pants drawer.] (if:$kickstick < 1)[You decide to [[Kick.]]] (else:$shirtdirt > 1)[You have kicked the dresser. It's an antique, you know. Probably.] [[Look around the room some more->Take the door to the right.]]

The bed is pretty comfortable, for a rock hard futon. (if: $inv contains "whiskey")[The sheets and duvets are soft in comparison.] (else:)[The sheets and duvets are soft in comparison, but there is something hard under the pillow.] There's a book on the floor beside the bed, open, spine cracked. (if: $inv contains "whiskey")[You've looked under the pillow.] (else:)[The sheets and duvets are soft in comparison, but there is something [[hard under the pillow.->Look Under the Pillow]]] [[Look around the room some more->Take the door to the right.]]

(if: $inv contains "a kindness")[The crib has a small body, covered with a blanket, because you were kind.] (elseif: $inv contains "lost kindness,")[The crib has a small body, covered with a blanket, because you were kind.] (elseif: $inv contains "a gourd")[There is a thin layer of dust in this crib.] (elseif: $inv contains "lost gourd")[There is a thin layer of dust in this crib.] (else:)[There's a moment of horror as you look in the crib and see what appears to be a small, unmoving body covered with a thick, black insect-- but on further examination, you see it's really a plastic child's toy with a large, gourd looking brown root stuck in its perfectly pink, plastic maw.] (if: $inv contains "a kindness")[You've looked around here already.] (elseif: $inv contains "lost kindness,")[You've looked around here already.] (elseif:$inv contains "a gourd")[You've looked here. Haven't you done enough.] (elseif: $inv contains "lost gourd")[You've looked here. Haven't you done enough.] (else:)[You could probably do something here like [[look around the room some more->Take the door to the right.]] [[Cover the plastic doll in the blanket.]] [[Reach out to take the doll or the gourd.]] ] [[Go back->Take the door to the right.]]

You go towards the window to glance outside, squinting out at the vast neighborhood of ant like, all similar suburban houses. The lawns are nice and neat, yellow lights glow from some of them, but not all. You see above the distant blinking red lights of a jet passing overhead. And, looking down, you see, illuminated by the streetlights, about thirty or so grey humanoid figures, all staring up at you with deep, wide, hollow, monochromatic eyes. [[Look around the room some more->Take the door to the right.]]

You're expecting to find something. You don't, not really. Well, you do-- you find socks, but they don't seem very useful. (set:$sockdrawer to $sockdrawer + 2) [[Examine the dresser.]]

You're surprised to find a dirty magazine in the drawer. Do you take it? [[Take the dirty magazine]] [[Leave the dirty magazine]]

You don't know what you expected to find but it definitely wasn't the gnarled, sappy root that sits in the draw, surrounded by ragged cloth and baby toys, oozing sap, slightly glinting in the dim light. (set:$pantsdrawer to $pantsdrawer + 2) (set:$inv to it + (array: "large root")) [[Take the root.->Examine the dresser.]]

(set: $kickstick to $kickstick + 2) You kick the dresser. It hurts your foot, but you hear a *thunk*. You lean down to investigate the source of the noise, and find a long, heavy stick. This might come in useful. You store it in your backpack. (set:$inv to it + (array: "heavy stick")) [[Examine the dresser.]]

Surely you'll find some use for it. You flip through the magazine, with photos of half naked... people? They're poorly taken, and weirdly blurry-- you can't make out full features. It's like you tried to describe a person to someone who'd never seen one before and they kinda guessed. It's weird to look at. The articles are weird too, and hard to read: "Funtastic Furry Freedom," "Hot Good Secret Parts," "Guess what juices are flowing." The words read like they were written haphazardly, like someone jammed the middle button on their phones predictive text autocorrect thing. You stash the magazine somewhere. (set:$inv to it + (array: "dirty magazine")) (set:$shirtdirt to $shirtdirt + 2) [[Examine the dresser.]]

Ew, gross. You don't want to touch that. You don't even know where its been. [[Examine the dresser.]]

(set: $cycle_list to (array: "An eye.", "A child while crying.", "a cold breath.", "something wrong.", "something you shouldn't be able to see.", "a mass of tentacles.", "a plastic Christmas tree, wilting.", "the soundtrack to your worst nightmare somehow.", "the idea of being able to walk away.", "the one you love most but lost.", "a beast with many open hearts, pulsating.", "something wrong.", "your deepest fear brought to life.", "a scrumptious feast all shiny and new", "the house you grew up in but burned out.", "your own face.", "a swirling sentient mass of paint.", "something wrong.", "a blue screen of death complete with logos.", "your twitter feed.", "a mountainous landscape from an impossible angle, through the perspective of ice.", "the cruelty of your own intentions.", "a failed essay assignment.", "a protracted metaphor.", "her. You see her. It's too late to apologize to her.", "something wrong.", "the beast.", "a broken toy from your childhood.", "your child-- no, not your child. You've never had children. Have you? What did they look like? did they look like that?", "a person, with one eye. It dominates their face, stretching over their nose, their mouth, their lips.", "a hand, reaching out.", "something wrong.", "something wrong.")) (set: $cycle_index to 1) You see (link-repeat: "[(print: $cycle_list's $cycle_index)]<cycle_link|")[(set: $cycle_index to it + 2)(if: $cycle_index > $cycle_list's length)[(set: $cycle_index to 2)](replace: ?cycle_link)[(print: $cycle_list's $cycle_index)]] [[Upstairs]]

(if: (passage:)'s name is "inventory")[] (else-if: (passage:)'s tags contains "donotshowinventory")[] (else:)[Check [[inventory]].]

Number of items in inventory: (print: $inv.length) List of items in inventory: (print: $inv) (link-goto: "Return", (history:)'s last)

You feel better. Drunk, but better. You look around, swaying, hazily. Your panic attack ebbs away under the influence of alcohol, making you wonder if you've ever tried to medicate your fears in that way before. Maybe you have. Maybe that's why you're here. [[Walk forwards.]] [[Examine your surroundings.]] [[Call out.]] (set:$inv to it + (array: "empty bottle")) (set:$inv to it - (array: "whiskey"))

You find a bottle of whiskey under the pillow. (set:$inv to it + (array: "whiskey")) [[Examine the bed.]]

Your cries pierce the thick winter air, crystalizing in expanding clouds of steam against the cold. The ground is frosty, complimentary only to the dead earth beneath. You feel a hand on your shoulder. [[Take a look]] [[Do not take a look]]

The room is obnoxiously gendered, obviously designed (set: $cycle_list to (array: "a boy child. It's blue, with dinosaurs, trucks, and other manly, manly things lining the walls, in the largest display of testosterone allowed for children under the age of ten. There's a shelf with nothing of importance on it-- in fact, your eyes slide away from it, and you can't seem to focus on it, no matter how hard you try. The child has Transformers bedsheets and obviously refuses to make the bed, with how messy it is. A single plush toy, aged, perches on a pillow. You can taste the boys will be boys attitude with every second you wait in this room.", "a girl child. It's bright pink, Barbie pink, you think it's called, and decorated with unicorns and princesses and other things of that ilk. Poking around the room you find a barbie doll that has been burned, horribly, plastic hair melted in thick globs across the perfectly painted face. Next to it you find a scrap of paper, which says 'This is what they want from you.'")) (set: $cycle_index to 1) You see (link-repeat: "[(print: $cycle_list's $cycle_index)]<cycle_link|")[(set: $cycle_index to it + 1)(if: $cycle_index > $cycle_list's length)[(set: $cycle_index to 1)](replace: ?cycle_link)[(print: $cycle_list's $cycle_index)]] (if: $inv contains "a toy bell")[You think you've already taken everything you can from this room.] (else:)[There is a toy chest in one corner. [[Explore the toy chest]].] [[Go back to the landing->Upstairs]]

You cover the doll with the blanket. It seems like the right thing to do. (set:$inv to it + (array: "a kindness")) [[Look around the room some more ->Take the door to the right.]]

The doll lets out a cry and a call and crumbles into dust beneath your clumsy hands. All that remains is the gourd and the echoes of the doll's strangely human voice in your ears. (set:$inv to it + (array: "a gourd")) [[Look around the room some more ->Take the door to the right.]]

You find a small, plastic bell. [[Look at the rest of the room.->You already hate this.]] [[Go back to the landing with your gift.->Upstairs]]

It's an old man. He's standing there, grinning. His hand digs into your shoulder. You can feel it, everything. The ice crystalizes in the air around your mouth as you breathe. You can feel your spine, twisted towards the shoulder he has grabbed. His arm seems slightly too long and definitely too strong. You stare at him. [[Continue to look]]

You do not look behind you. You stumble forward, back frozen in fear, the hand on your shoulder tight. You do not look. It's still behind you, still on your back. You do not look. [[Walk forwards.]]

The stream bubbles with a thick black ichor. Occasionally, things reach out of it, grasping up at you. They seem to be alive still. [[Pull something out.]] [[Go back->Walk forwards.]]

(if: $inv contains "large root")[The only thing that makes sense is to [[place the root in the cradle]].] (if: $inv contains "large root")[Or...] (if: $inv contains "kickstick")[The only thing that makes sense is to [[place the stick in the cradle-->Put the Wrong Thing in The Cradle]].] (if: $inv contains "kickstick")[Or...] (if: $inv contains "dirty magazine")[The only thing that makes sense is to [[place the dirty magazine in the cradle-->Put the Wrong Thing in The Cradle]].] (if: $inv contains "dirty magazine")[Or...] (if: $inv contains "a gourd")[The only thing that makes sense is to [[place the Gourd in the cradle-->Put Gourd in The Cradle]].] (if: $inv contains "a gourd")[Or...] You have nothing to give. [[Go to the stream.]] [[Go to the bell.]]

You ring the bell. Nothing happens, for a moment. Then you hear weeping. [[Investigate the Weeping]] [[Run]]

His eyes are watching you, or they may just be staring straight forward, you cannot tell if they're focused. His grin is stretched tight across his face, white puffs of hair gently styled with a caring touch. He doesn't let go of you, and you can't move, not from this twisted position. He doesn't let go of you, and you can feel your toes freezing, your shins splintering, shards of cold and ice crawling in from the shadows. It feels like your teeth are going to split open and burst. [[Continue to look further]]

He doesn't let go of you. He doesn't let go of you. He doesn't let go. [[Neutral ending.]]

You remember how fragile the root is. You remember how carefully you have to place it, how gently it feels, how soft and dusty its outer skin is. Carefully, you pull it out of your bag. You can hear weeping and bubbling, a song of frost and false winters, the bite of the air and the cloying feeling of hands at your back. You ignore it all. You take the root and place it gently in the cradle. But do you sing? (if: $inv contains "a kindness")[Yes[[Yes]].] [[No]]

The world screams. [[You wake up.]]

There is a woman. She is hunched over, her brown hair covering her face in wet messy strands, her face in her hands. Her clothes are stained in something dark and red and brown. As you approach her, she wails. [[Ask her what's wrong.]] [[Run]]

You run. You feel something brush at your back. It could be a tree, or it could be fingertips. The forest is massive, and unforgiving, and you are lost. There's no way back, so you run onwards. [[Look behind you.]] [[Run more]]

You place the root in the cradle, hands still at your back, and start to sing. You don't know the melody that well, but you can feel it as surely as you can feel that the hands aren't human. They let you go as you sing, as well as you can, a song you don't know that well for an audience you cannot know at all. You can feel the ice begin to melt, and still you sing, your voice shimmering around dripping icicles and thawing lakes, as you rock this strange root. The blue sky is cutting through to the heart of this strange place, and you can feel it warming everything around you, blistering the evil and burning it away. The water beneath you rises, up to your knees, your hips, your shoulders, and then carries you up, and still you sing, until it's you, and the cradle, and the root, bobbing just above an infinite sea of deep blue water. [[You hear a bell in the distance.]]

The root is silent. The world is silent, finally. You still feel the hands pulling at your back, but they feel less restless now, less ill. They aren't grabbing at you. [[It is so, so quiet.]]

You feel the rumble before you see the cradle rock, and you can see, now, the sky itself collapsing in on itself, flaking away like rust. In the distance the trees heave and collapse into nothing, tumbling down an infinite crevice in the world. You can sense, far away, oceans and mountains falling together to become nothing, the clap of the world dying, heat and cold falling away, stars falling from the sky, the sky closing. You can feel the hands dissolve at your back, fizzling away, for they are nothing. It is just you; you and the root and the cradle. You rock it as the world is snatched from beneath your feet. [[The world is nothing now.]]

There will be no songs. There will be no sound, as there is no air to carry it. There will be no breath, no water, no moon or sun or sky. Nothingness, infinitely, looks like yourself, the root, and the cradle. You have all of eternity to spend here. [[Neutral ending.]]

You have achieved a neutral ending! [[Try again?->Start]]

Even as you turn, you feel a hand on your shoulder. It's wrong, it's all wrong. The bones underneath the skin don't feel human, but he looks human, he does. But you can feel something wriggling, something icy, something cold, something ancient. [[Continue to look]]

You run until your lungs are burning. You run until you don't know who you are or where you are. You run until the ice starts to melt, until the ground beneath your feet is more dirt that cold stabbing knives. You are at a shrine. At least, you think it's a shrine. There are stones arranged in circles around a raised platform. On the platform are a variety of things; fabric, sculptures, flowers, rings, love letters, locks, and teeth. (if: $inv contains "dirty magazine")[For some reason the only thing that seems to interest the creatures is, um, your dirty magazine.-->[[Sacrifice to the things in the forest]].] (if: $inv contains "dirty magazine")[Or...] [[Run forever]]

You ask her what's wrong-- at least, you think you ask her. She responds, anyway. "My baby, they took my baby, they took my child, my baby, so small," she says. She doesn't look at you. She sobs. "Do you have my baby?" (if: $inv contains "large root")[You know you have her baby. You give it to her-->[[Give her the root.]].] (if: $inv contains "large root")[Or...] (if: $inv contains "large root")[You know you have her baby. You do not give it to her-->[[Do not give her the root.]].] (if: $inv contains "large root")[Or...] You do not have her baby, you don't have it. You tell her this. [[She screams]]

You run. You run until your feet bleed, until you're starving, thirsty, bloody, tired. You run until your shoes tear through, and the flesh on the bottom of your feet wear away, and the bone underneath is exposed. You run, and run, and run. [[Neutral ending.]]

You stay at the shrine. The rocks protect you from the things in the forest that are not the things that guard you. You sleep among the stones at night and sit on the dais in the day. You tell the creatures stories of the daylight, of the places and times before you came to the shrine. You know one day you will run out of stories, and on that day you will die. [[Neutral ending.]]

You give her the root. Kind, but foolish. She laughs, now, laughs until she's almost crying, hysterical and bright. She grins at you, with all her sharp, brittle teeth, and presses them against your cheek-- you surmise that she might be kissing you. Then she turns, taking your root, and leaves. [[Go to the stream.]] [[Go to the cradle.]] (set:$inv to it + (array: "an empty kindness")) (set:$inv to it - (array: "large root"))

She knows you have the root, and she leaps on you, pushing you to the ground, biting at your neck. She opens her mouth, and it's too wide, and she bites at you and chomps at you. (if: $inv contains "heavy stick")[You grasp at the heavy stick, scrambling in the snow, and hit her on the side of the head-->[[She falls.]].] (else:)[[You cannot fend her off.]]

Oh how she screams, like you've killed her. You may have killed her. She's weeping, she's weeping so much. On the ground, she's slowly melting into it. The earth is reaching up and pulling her away. She disappears from before your eyes, and you can feel something kind within you fall away. [[Go to the stream.]] [[Go to the cradle.]] (set:$inv to it + (array: "nothing")) (set:$inv to it - (array: "a kindness"))

You wake up, in your bed. Your wife is next to you. She's moving, stiff with the grey morning, ready to get up for the day. You can hear your child already moving around in the kitchen downstairs. "Come on, honey," She says. It's a normal day. You don't look outside. Instead, you get up, almost compelled, and pull on your dressing gown. [[Go downstairs to meet your family for breakfast.]]

(set: $cycle_list to (array: "a severed arm", "a small body with human proportions", "a painting, ruined beyond the imagination of its author", "a necklace of human teeth", "a pulsating heart", "a mass of tentacles.", "a shopping cart, or a shopping trolley", "a well loved walkman", "a forty page thesis paper", "a packet of cigarettes with an unfamiliar lable", "some sort of small animal, not a real one", "a mass of sewer rats, tails all tangled", "a computer monitor, buzzing slightly", "a clock, slowly counting down", "a miniature model of a root vegetable in a cradle, or some sort of rocking thing", "a face mask of someone you once loved", "a note that says 'give her what she wants' and nothing more", "sheet music, but you don't know the tune, though the title of the piece is 'a Kindness'")) (set: $cycle_index to 1) You pull (link-repeat: "[(print: $cycle_list's $cycle_index)]<cycle_link|")[(set: $cycle_index to it + 2)(if: $cycle_index > $cycle_list's length)[(set: $cycle_index to 2)](replace: ?cycle_link)[(print: $cycle_list's $cycle_index)]] out of the stream. It melts away in front of your eyes. You're not sure what to do with any of this. [[Go to the cradle.]] [[Go to the bell.]]

She's stronger than you, dense and crawling in all the wrong ways. As she pins you to the ground, you gasp in one final breath as her teeth pierce through your neck, your red blood marking her face and the newfallen snow. It's good you're dead, as the other creatures of the forest-- creatures on all fours, teeth, eyes, and bloodied white mats of hair, lumbering beasts, fingers and hands-- will slowly rip your body apart for food and savor the bits that marked you. [[Neutral ending.]]

The woman tips and falls as she is struck, and as she hits the ground she bursts into a million crawling black maggots, spattering on the snow. You stand up, a little roughed up and cut, but no worse for wear. [[Go to the stream.]] [[Go to the cradle.]]

There's nothing. For a really long time, there is nothing. And then the world tears up through the ground, long, lanky, fleshy hands, grip you, and pull you down. [[and down and down and down]]

The living room isn't comfortable. The cushy looking seats feel like rocks. The table is littered with magazines, but they're all adult, or violent, or taboo, not for family viewing, and it's jarring to see them scattered on the table in something that has so obviously been styled to seem like a family room, in a family house. On top of the stack, there is one clean magazine-- a home and garden magazine, with a picture of a nice house, set against a blue sky, and beautiful poppies. The magazine's name is "Home Help! Joy!" and the subtitle is "this is YOUR house." When you try to pick up the magazine you cannot remove it from the table. [[Explore the kitchen.]] [[Explore the office.]] [[Explore the bathroom.]] [[Go back.->Go downstairs.]]

The kitchen is well stocked, or at least you think so at first. When you inspect one of the cans, the lid feels malleable and strangely plastic. There are a few pans in the sink, covered in some sort of material that seems to have fused with the pans. There are salt and pepper shakers to one side, but they're empty. You can see inside the coffee machine, and you see it's been filled with candy wrappers, and someone has obviously run hot water through them. You can see outside. You can see outside the creatures that you could glance from the upstairs windows. They still stand there, unmoving, unmoved. You have a bad feeling about them. [[Open a can.]] [[Check outside.]] [[Go back->Go downstairs.]]

The office looks like a normal office in the half second before your eyes adjust to the darkness. Then you can see-- every single surface in the room is covered in picture frames, and every picture frame has a picture of you in it. [[Examine them closer.]] [[Go back->Go downstairs.]]

The bathroom is clean, and seems lived in-- at least for a second. There's a towel on the back of the door, toothbrushes and toothpaste marks on the sink, and the toilet paper has been torn off halfway through a sheet. But you realize-- the stains on the towel are perfectly symmetrical. The dirt on the sink could have been drawn on with a protractor and a ruler. The toilet paper has been torn off neatly, half way through a sheet, to the millimeter. You open the lid to the toilet, and find granite. The toothbrush bristles have all been bent at the exact same angle, the exact same way. [[Go back->Go downstairs.]]

You decide to open one of the cans, which takes some time, since you can't find a working can-opener. You find a can of soda in the fridge with a ring top, and open it, to find it empty inside. You try again with a can of sardines-- this time, the tin is full, but the sardines are fake and plastic, the kind you'd get for a child to play with. You have no doubt that all the cans here are like that. [[Go back to the kitchen->Explore the kitchen.]]

You decide, foolishly, to check outside. The air is warm, like a room that has been closed for several days, and smells like sweat and clogged sinks. You move through the air slowly and slickly. The creatures do not move, even to look at you. [[Go back-->Explore the kitchen.]] [[Continue onwards.]]

The closer you get to these creatures the more unnerved you feel. They have too many teeth. Their mouths are closed, but they have too many teeth, you're sure of it. Their eyes are hollow, white and searching, but somehow you doubt they care that you exist. Still, they have made a ring around this house. You step forwards, cautiously. [[Go back->Explore the kitchen.]] [[Continue further into the yard.]]

The garden seems nice at first, until you examined the grass further-- it doesn't seem like the grass is real. It's more like the fake stuffing you get in Easter displays downtown, the kind of thing little kids and dogs stuff into their mouths to get caught in their teeth. It feels rough and bloody to touch. There are flowers, but they're too heavy, almost thick as clay, and droop down on their too stiff stems. [[Go back->Explore the kitchen.]] [[Continue towards the gate.]]

You are now at the gate. The creatures are less than a foot away. Before they seemed slightly taller than people-- now they are gigantic, overwhelming. They're swallowing you up. [[Go back->Explore the kitchen.]] [[Unlock the gate and step towards them.]]

You step forwards, past the white picket fence, onto the slick concrete of the street. The creatures are in front of you. There's nowhere to turn but back. [[Go back->Explore the kitchen.]] [[Reach out to touch one.]]

[[You reach out--]]

You wake up in your bed, sweating. Your pockets are lighter, and your head is fuzzy. You glance out the window, and the creatures are-- closer? Your feet still feel damp, but the belongings in the room have been moved around, almost imperceptably. [[Open the Door]] (set:$inv to (array: "nothing"))

You look closer at the pictures. They're all the exact same picture of you, posing in the same way, at the same time. The only difference is that in each image your eyes are in a slightly different place. Whoever arranged this room arranged it so that each picture of you is staring directly at the person entering the door. There's something else, too. It's subtle, but in each picture, there's something in the window behind you. It's not until you compare the pictures against each other that you see it moving. [[Go back->Go downstairs.]]

The bell belongs to a small boat, a junker, really, which is floating towards you slowly, tolling its bell. You can hear voices, warm and human, even if they're in a language you don't know. They drift towards you, and you can hear other voices on board, singing a melody to your tune. One of them reaches out a hand. You cannot see their face. [[Take their hand.]] [[Take their hand, but leave the root.]] [[Give them the root, and keep floating.]] [[Stay on the water with the root and the cot.]]

You take their hand, and pull the root up with you too, the cradle having served its usefulness. One of the creatures, covered in rags, helps you swaddle the root as it has its own children. The creatures are kind to you, and eventually you learn their ways, sailing forwards together, as a family, towards happy possibility and a more joyful tomorrow. [[Good ending.]]

The root is not yours. You know that. The root belongs to this new world, and you belong to the sea you created. You belong to the drifting, the currents, the tides, and the drowned belief. The hands grasp the root and coo over it, sweetly, and as you watch the junker drift away, you know you will miss the song it drives within you. But you made the right choice. They will care for it, and after all, it was your choice to make. So you drift, one spot on an endless ocean, and wait for the possibilities to take ahold of you. [[Good ending.]]

You refuse the hand-- you have held too many inhuman hands to not be cautious. The voices seem disappointed, but respect your decision, and float onwards, away from you. You remain, drifting, you and yours in hand, and you sing in the new world, your choice firm. [[Good ending.]]

It's not yours, anymore, but the world's. You feel it. The hand that pulls you onto the boat is warm, and still possibly not human, but the variety of faces are friendly and kind. Someone offers you a warm drink, and another creature pulls out a stringed instrument. You drift away in the warm embrace of friendship and possibility, ready to search for a better dawn. [[Good ending.]]

Hey! You got the good ending! You will note I say "the good ending." Whichever of the four choices you just made, those are all the good endings available. Maybe try again, but do worse, and get a worse ending, or try one of the four other endings. [[Try again?->Start]]

hands grabbing you and dragging you down and down and down, the ice and dirt surrounding you, until you are held, until you are cold and dark and in pain, and in pain forever, the hands of the earth and the spirits you insulted holding you there, demanding retribution for what you did you know. you took the dust and the dirt and lost a kindness, and now you're here. now you're here. [[worst ending]]

You got the worst ending! Congratulations. Try again, and don't take the gourd next time. Try the root. [[Try again?->Start]]

Your wife is in the bathroom. You can hear her brushing her teeth, but the water isn't going, which is good. She's saving water. It makes sense. You do not go into the office. Instead you go into the living room to meet with your child. [[Go into the living room to meet with your child.]]

You go into the living room, where your child is sitting on the couch. It's definitely a child-- it's definitely your child. You know this because it looks just like you. You remember seeing the skull of a teething child, remember how it had all those teeth. It makes sense that your child looks like that, all those teeth. Those are the things that your child has, because it is your child. Your child smiles at you. [[Smile at your child.]]

You are compelled to smile at the child. This is your child. You love it. You are compelled to love it. Your wife comes back into the room. Her mouth smells like old, soft peat and compost. She brushed her teeth. "Come on, honey," she says. She walks into the kitchen. [[Go to the kitchen.]]

You are at the kitchen table, eating breakfast. Breakfast is plastic and rubbery waffles, possibly made of rubber and plastic. It is your favourite meal, which you eat every day. Outside, you see tall men surrounding your property. They're your friends. Your wife smiles. Your child smiles. You will live your life here, in these boundaries. Forever. You smile. [[Bad ending.]]

Hey, you got a bad ending! If you do a better job, you might get a neutral ending, or even a good ending! Or even a worse ending. [[Try again?->Start]]

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This is your house. You will wake up here.

Your job is to make it okay.

Wake up

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